Torture, if it saves lives, may be a necessary evil

Philadelphia Inquirer ^ | 7 April 2002 | Mark Bowden

[Fintan]

Some months ago in this space I provoked indignation by raising the question of torture. Pondering where the war on terrorism might lead, I posed the following questions about the treatment of captured terrorist leaders: "If they have information that might reveal other terrorist cells and planned attacks, how far are we willing to go to pry information from them? Will we use torture?"

With the capture last week of Abu Zubaydah, a reputed senior leader of al-Qaeda, those questions are no longer hypothetical. FBI director Robert Mueller said Zubaydah's arrest "assists in helping prevent another terrorist attack," but he didn't say how. We can presume Zubaydah is not volunteering information. Does this mean we are coercing him? If we are doing so, is it wrong?

Torture is, of course, reprehensible. It debases the torturer and any society that condones it. It would violate the U.S. Constitution, the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Decent people abhor it. It is evil. Being against torture is as easy as being in favor of chocolate cake.

How simple the world would be if ethics were that clear-cut. Most uses of torture are clearly wrong. It is a tool of oppression, used to terrorize and control populations. It is also used to punish, or to exact vengeance.

Zubaydah's is a much rarer case. With him, we are talking about using torture to extract valuable, lifesaving information. Here's how Michael Levin, a philosophy professor at City College in New York, makes the argument: Suppose a nuclear device is about to be detonated in a large city. A captured terrorist has information that can prevent this, but he refuses to divulge it. Can we torture him to learn what he knows? Levin argues that under these circumstances, it would be "morally mandatory."

He writes: "Torturing the terrorist is unconstitutional? Probably. But millions of lives certainly outweigh unconstitutionality. Torture is barbaric? Mass murder is more barbaric. Indeed, letting millions of innocents die in deference to one who flaunts his guilt is moral cowardice, an unwillingness to dirty one's hands."

This is a genuine moral dilemma. Is it acceptable to harm someone in order to prevent a greater harm? Are the rights of one who plots violence more important than the lives of his intended victims? Might the value of torture sometimes outweigh its iniquity? One who thinks it sometimes does is Arthur Kaplan, director of the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Bioethics.

"I'm not an absolutist," he says. "Torture is wrong, but not always."

The Rev. John Langan, a professor of philosophy at Georgetown University, likewise will not rule it out in extreme circumstances - "where the danger to innocents is real and imminent, and there is good reason to suspect that the person has information that could prevent it."

What about Zubaydah? There's no question that al-Qaeda poses a real threat. It has already killed thousands. The group is probably careful enough to assume that whatever he knows is now compromised, which means many of the specifics of his knowledge - plots, locations of terrorist cells - are no longer useful. But as a senior leader he would know things like the numbers and names of personnel, and capabilities (whether, for instance, al-Qaeda possesses weapons of mass destruction, and, if so, what kind). This is information that could save thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of lives.

In this scenario, we begin to consider torture by degrees.

"It would certainly be right to question someone like him intensely," says Father Langan. "You would structure his interrogation so that incentives for him to cooperate are very strong. It would not be out of place to threaten and pressure him. Short of physical harm, there are lots of ways of making his life pretty miserable if he refuses to talk."

Kaplan would go further.

"I would torture someone like him to the point where the torture becomes ineffective," he says. "At a certain point, the quality of information you obtain is unreliable. You can get people to say anything, and they will say anything to make you stop. But I would be willing to get pretty rugged with this guy, and to employ psychological and pharmacological tools."

There is a cost. To employ torture means to abandon the high moral ground, to diminish the luster of your cause. It invites further erosion of human rights. If it's right in order to save a thousand lives, then why not a hundred, ten, or one? Why not in cases where the danger is less certain, or where the captive may or may not possess valuable information? When you make an exception to a rule, it becomes harder to enforce.

But real life is made of exceptions. Absolutes are for classrooms. We should find out what Zubaydah knows.

 

[Enemy Of The State]

The saftey of society should never come at the expense of individual rights! PERIOD!

[jwalburg]

Being against torture is as easy as being in favor of chocolate cake.

This is a good line. You can substitute "war," "poverty," "pollution," "crime" or any of a number of other things.
Otherwise, this is a scary article. He's opening a door here that we might have a hard time closing.
Do we become torturers to stop terrorism? It's unconstitutional to pluck someone's fingernails off, one by one, anyway.

[mtman]

The problem with a "slippery slope" is....You dont stop till you get to the bottom of the hill...and even then..momentum takes you a bit further.....(I have no answers...just questions)..mtman

[Fintan]

.....(I have no answers...just questions)

Me too. I was really curious to see FReeper replies to this.

[Own Drummer]

I'd like to propose the following: anyone who thinks torture may be justified should be hooked up to a car battery by the genitals, and have some psycho play with the rheostat for a day or two, just to see exactly what it is they're supporting.

Torture is not justified. Ever.

[ItisaReligionofPeace]

If you had good reason to believe (or new 100%) that a man had buried you wife and baby alive in an underground coffin and they were going to suffocate to death within 3 hours unless you could get to them first, would you torture the man in order to find out where your wife and kid were???

[WhyisaTexasgirlinPA]

Why would we even NEED to resort to torture? Why not sodium pentathol (sp?)......wouldn't that work easily and without having to debase ourselves to torture?

[ItisaReligionofPeace]

new = knew

[ItisaReligionofPeace]

from what some talking heads (retired federal agents) have said, sodium pentathol (sp) doesn't work...

[WhyisaTexasgirlinPA]

Really? I know that when I was coming out of surgery (having babies!) I was talking a mile a minute and worried like hell that my mother-in-law was going to hear me tell her exactly what I thought of her! lol

I didn't realize that drugs didn't work........

[Dinsdale]

Sleep deprevation has been shown to work very well. Of course the 'wise men' at the UN define it as torture. If I was in charge no way would bozo have gotten any sleep at all in the last week. FYI I've gone a few days without sleep, it's not pleasent but mostly you are confused and slow. You might not notice the difference.

Per the 'Gulag Archapeligo' repeatedly drowning someone then reviving them will also make them talk without leaving a mark. Repeatedly drowning someone who has'nt slept in a week will make them talk. Repeatedly drowning someone who has'nt slept in a week and who is on psycotropic drugs should do the trick.

[SevenDaysInMay]

Reports about the fates of the Disappeared in Chile and Argentina troubles indicate that the most severe forms of modern torture are all in a day's work for the authorities.

During a mission's need to know moment, field questioning can get rather direct.

[El Gato]

Tortue is in general not an effective means of extracting information. The more committed the subject, the less effective it will be. You'd not get anything. At best the subjects will tell you what they think you want to hear, not the truth. Or they'll tell you anything but the truth. They might even slip and let the truth out, but it will be buried in so much BS, by the time you find it, whatever is going to happen will have already happened. Drugs and things like sensory deprevation have more promis, although the latter is somewhat subject to the same limitations as tortue. On the question of constitutionality, well I'm not sure that in the circumstances indicated that torture would be cruel or unusual. Besides which, it wouldn't really be punishment, would it? That would come after interrogation and trial, assuming the subject survies interrogation.

So if you want satisfaction, tortue the guy, if you want usefull information, you'll have to find other means of getting it.

[ItisaReligionofPeace]

Yeah, well I've been knocked out for minor surgery and I talked a bunch too. I can't remember anything I said or did on the way home. However, like I said, I've heard that there really isn't a drug that will extract the truth. If there was I doubt there would ever be a torture case.

[El Gato]

During a mission's need to know moment, field questioning can get rather direct

That is indeed one of the exceptions, but even then it isn't always effective. The subject will be shocked and disoriented by the combat, especially even heavy duty firepower has been used.

[Senator Pardek]

I find it odd how some folks come out so stridently against the torture of prisoners who may have info that can save the lives of thousands of American citizens, while at the same time are in favor of the torture of innocent civilians in a foreign land (burned skin, removal of limbs, blindness, etc...)

[El Gato]

The drugs in question tend to reduce inhibitions. Thus a woman might not give a flip whether her mother-in-law heard "the truth" or not, at least at one level. The "forgetting" effect is often not a mere side effect, but an intentional one. They give you something to *make* you forget. It interfers with conversion of short term memory to long term. I've seen the effect on my wife. She was in extreme discomfort, and vocal about it, but didn't remember it afterwards, as the doctor said she would not. (Not labor, that she remembers)

[TomGuy]

Perhaps, as with many issues, it would depend on the proximity.

Senario:

FBI detains a "person" of dubious character. Dubious refuses to speak. FBI detects significant residual radiation on Dubious.

FBI retraces Dubious' activities and finds that he visited NYC, Washinton, DC., Chicago, Dallas, Phoenix and Los Angeles within the last 2 weeks. [Dubious was apprehended at LAX while attempting to force his way onto an airline bound for Manila.] In each city, Dubious met with several other "characters" who have now disappeared.

FBI learns that Dubious worked with the Pakistani Nuclear development.

FBI considers that Dubious may have been working with at least one group in one of the cities he visited and that at least group may have been developing a "dirty" bomb.

Would you:

1. Interrogate and hope for the best.
2. Question and resort to torture.
3. "Put him on ice" and bring in his ACLU attorney who's been threatening to sue to entire establishment.

[mv1]

As long as people like Jonathon Pollard also are questioned this way:
This story was published in Metro on Monday, November 5, 2001 St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

U.S. now might have to consider what once was unthinkable, Dershowitz says

By Tina Hesman
Of The Post-Dispatch

Americans may have to consider ideas as foreign as truth serums and torture warrants when thinking about striking a balance between liberty and security after the terrorist attacks Sept. 11.

That was the message celebrity lawyer and civil libertarian Alan M. Dershowitz delivered to a crowd packed into a gymnasium Sunday at the Jewish Community Center in Creve Coeur. Dershowitz was the opening speaker for the Jewish Book Fair.

He originally was scheduled to talk about his book "Supreme Injustice," a critical account of the Supreme Court's ruling on the presidential election last year. But Dershowitz instead turned his comments to civil liberties.

[Maelstrom]

No.

[Burkeman1]

First- let's be clear. The US military is no stranger to torture. Certain German POWS- especially submariners- were tortured quite harshly during WWII at one particular center (I think it was in Arizona but can't remember.) The tortures including forcing the subjects to sit with exposed gentials on hot radiators, pummleing in the gut to cause internal bleeding, and electric shock. One subject with appendicidis was denied medical care until he talked.

This was of course done in violation of the Geneva convention.

This sort of torture would not be accepted by most Americans.

But there are more "humane" tortures such as sleep deprivation. The Soviets practiced sleep deprivation during the purges (they also combined it with physical torture as well to speed up the process of "confessions".) But sleep deprivation can break a man down in as little as 72 hours. Some subjects can take longer. But no one really lasts over 10 days. Without sleep the human mind becomes disoriented- even hallucinations are not uncommon after extended periods without sleep. Sleep deprivation combined with professional interogation tactics, and compltete isolation from outside news or contacts will eventually force cooperation with anyone.

[Burkeman1]

Special forces are trained on how to resist torture. There are definite techniques on how to resist or confuse an interrigator. Surely AL Queda members are also aware of these techniques. IT may take longer- but a professional trained specialist can easily recognize lies and half truths in a subject undergoing questioning. I suspect it would take longer with any member of Al QUeda- but with a speicialist doing the questioning combined with total isolation and sleep deprivation- perhaps with holding of food and water- anyone will eventually break and begin to see their torturer as a father figure and confessor.

[DAnconia55]

We are so screwed....

[DAnconia55]

from what some talking heads (retired federal agents) have said, sodium pentathol (sp) doesn't work...

They have other, more powerful (and deadly) chemicals...

[ItisaReligionofPeace]

Can you name these more powerful chemicals, what the effects of them are and how widespread the use of them is, or are you just an armchair expert?

[M.K. Borders]

Torture is not justified. Ever.

It's not needed either. Torture is the recourse of amatures, period.
A common army tactic is, get them scared, get them sleepy, then treat them well, and many roll-over and start to spill.

When dealing with the hard cases, sodium pentethol.

Torture? Naw, not even an issue.